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Zuma asked to act over execution of SA woman

JANICE Bronwyn Linden, a South African woman sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling, will have woken up this morning and found out that she would be dead by the afternoon.

Linden, who was arrested for carrying 3kg of methamphetamines in her luggage after her arrival at Baiyun International Airport in the southern city of Guangzhou, China, in November 2008, was sentenced to death for the crime in November last year.

According to Chinese practice Linden will only have been told of her execution this morning, Chinese time.

While the South African government called on their Chinese counterparts to halt the execution on several occasions, these calls have fallen on deaf ears.

The 35-year-old woman from KwaZulu-Natal was expected to be put to death by lethal injection today.

Two of her sisters are currently in China and will be allowed an hour with her before she is put to death.

Clayson Monyela, spokesman for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, said the government was in constant contact with the Chinese authorities regarding the matter.

Linden was sentenced to death in July last year. She received the death penalty and appealed to both the high court in Guangdong province and the supreme court in Beijing, but the appeals failed.

Yesterday DA shadow Deputy Minister of International Relations Stevens Mokgalapa called on President Jacob Zuma to make a "last-ditch" attempt to have her sentence reverted.

"Our government cannot stand idle while one of our citizens is executed on foreign shores," Mokgalapa said.

"It is clear that, whatever our diplomats have done has not been enough. Drug mules should be punished for what they do. But this is a case of a punishment not fitting the crime," he said.

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